“For that money, I could never have gotten anything like her in the U.S.,” Irwin said. When Dalicia had her first foal, he offered shares to people who had invested in the mare, and that was the genesis of the Animal Kingdom partnership.
Irwin complains that the racing industry does not always treat such partnerships with proper consideration.
“There’s a real prejudice against larger ownership groups,” he said. “Sometimes they minimize people because they can’t afford to buy the whole horse.”
Such a characterization doesn’t apply to the Animal Kingdom syndicate, most of whose members are well-to-do businessmen, active or retired. Bruce Zoldan is the CEO of the Youngstown Phantoms in the U. S. Hockey League. Ed Weil of Winnetka, Ill., 83, was the owner of a telecom-equipment business. Carl Pascarella of San Francisco, who runs a private equity firm, was chairman of Visa USA when the credit-card company sponsored the Triple Crown series. Tom Furey of Madison, Conn., is a retired IBM executive who oversaw the company’s technology at the Olympic Games.
Furey raced harness horses in his own name for many years, but he was attracted to the syndicate because he wanted the experience of “racing at the highest level of the game.” He thought he had reached the apex when he went to Hong Kong to watch a Team Valor horse capture the Queen Elizabeth II Cup, a race with international prestige. But the biggest thrill was about to come.
Seventeen of Animal Kingdom’s 20 shareholders — individuals who owned anywhere from 2.5 to 15 percent of the horse — came to Louisville to see their long shot run. They attended a Thursday night party for the owners, experienced the pre-race excitement of the Churchill Downs paddock and then the exaltation of going to the winner’s circle.
“It was like an out-of- body experience,” Furey said.
“It was surreal,” said Weil, who had been watching Kentucky Derbies since 1938 and never dreamed of getting this close to one.
Surely none of the 20 partners thought he was being shortchanged because he owned only a fraction of the Derby winner.
“The thrill is still the thrill,” Furey said, “as if it’s your own horse.”
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